THE HAWTHOKN. 



Crata'f/us Oxyacan'tha L. 



Above a fifth of our forest trees belong to the Rose 

 tribe; and nearly half of them have white flowers. 

 Among these, none, perhaps, exceeds in beauty that 

 characteristically English tree, the Hawthorn, Cra- 

 taegus Oxyacantha L. True, its geographical range 

 includes all Europe, the North of Africa, and the 

 West and North of Asia, whilst it has been 

 introduced into North America ; but in England, 

 from the earliest days of private property in land, it 

 has been our chief hedge-forming bush, and perhaps 

 many of the large, many-boled trees on our bare hill- 

 sides or commons date from even an earlier period. 



" Haw " is the same as " hedge " ; and in 

 the North the fruits of the Thorn are still termed 

 " haigs," so that it is somewhat doubtful whether 

 the word " hedge " is derived from the name of the 

 tree that bears the " haws," or whether, as is more 

 probable, the fruit took its name from being borne 

 on a hedgerow tree. 



This fruit resembles a miniature rosy-cheeked 

 apple. Though it may consist of but one " carpel," 

 while in the allied genus Py'rus there are never 

 less than two, it often has, as we shall see, five of 

 these divisions. In either case the round or oval 

 fruit is surmounted, as in the apple, by the withered 

 remains of the calyx. The mealy flesh of the fruit, 



46 49 



